Sleepover At The Burrow
by Ralinde
Summary: One night, when their four eldest grandchildren are staying at The Burrow, Arthur and Molly have the scare of their lives.


_A/N: This was written for the Fanfiction Tournaments, edition April 2013, with the prompts "Time, motion and wine cause sleep" and "flight"._

* * *

"Arthur! Arthur!"

Molly's voice sounded panicked and Arthur took the flight of stairs as quickly as his legs could carry him. He pulled his night robe tighter and shivered. Outside, the wind was howling.

"What's wrong?" he asked slightly panting when he arrived in the attic.

"Oh Arthur, I came up here to see if the girls were alright, and…look!" Molly pointed a shaky finger.

Arthur followed it until he nearly felt his heart stop. On the other end of the attic, an enormous branch was sticking through the roof, inches away from the bed where four-year-old Roxanne was still sleeping profoundly, unaware of the imminent danger.

"Dear Merlin!" he said, shocked. "If that branch had got in three inches further, she could have been killed!"

"How is it possible that all of them just slept through that storm and then that branch falling through the roof…" Molly whispered.

Like Roxanne, Victoire, Dominique and Molly were all still soundly asleep.

"So, what do we do now? Should we wake them up?" Molly said.

Arthur frowned. The idea of waking up four little girls at five in the morning when there was half a tree lunging over one of them didn't appeal to him in the least. There was bound to be screaming. Besides, Roxanne might sit up and bump her head in the process. There had to be a better way.

"Molly? Can you go downstairs?"

"What?" She looked shocked. "You're not suggesting that I just leave them be? Who knows what might happen? That branch could come down further and Roxie could get pierced!"

"Just go down and retrieve our wands. We can fix this, we're wizards, aren't we?"

With a last hesitating look at her granddaughter, Molly disappeared, only to appear minutes later with two wands in her hand. She gave one to Arthur.

They looked at each other and nodded. They didn't need words to communicate what they'd do next. Molly understood Arthur's plan and took her stance.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" they said in unison.

At first, nothing happened, but then the branch trembled slightly, so they tried again, prolonging the spell. Bit by bit, the branch moved upwards and with the utmost of concentration and effort, they managed to get it out of their house. Immediately, the rain started gushing down through the hole in the roof. They could stop most of it, but a small trickle fell on Roxanne's nose. She wrinkled it and then she stirred.

"She sleeps through a thunderstorm, nearly gets killed by a tree branch without noticing a thing, but some droplets of water and Madame is awake," Molly muttered. "Go figure."

"Gran?" Roxanne's sleepy voice sounded. "It's raining in my bed."

"It's okay, sweetie. Just go back to sleep," Molly shushed. "Grandpa is fixing the roof."

Sure enough, Arthur finished fixing the hole in the roof and the rain stopped coming through.

"You can go back to sleep, Roxie," Arthur echoed. "See? It's all fixed now."

"Okay," Roxanne yawned. "Will you tug me in?"

"Of course."

Arthur tugged her in and the both of them kissed Roxanne on her head. "Sleep tight, Roxie."

They hadn't even left the attic, when Roxanne was already back asleep. During all of this commotion, neither of the other girls had done anything but stir.

As silently as they could, Arthur and Molly tiptoed back to their own bedroom.

"We should really get that roof fixed properly some time soon," Arthur said. "This is only a temporally fix, and it might not last that long."

"But not now," Molly yawned. "I'm exhausted."

"Well, you know what they say: Time, motion and wine cause sleep," Arthur joked, but he too looked tired.

"Replace time with age, motion with commotion and leave the wine out and it fits one hundred percent," Molly murmured and Arthur stifled a laugh. She crawled back into bed, drawing the blankets up to her nose. "You should go to bed too."

Arthur crawled in next to her and put his arm around her. He buried his nose in her hair. "We're not that old yet," he protested softly.

"Maybe not, but we're not twenty anymore either."

"Really? I don't see any difference. You're still my gorgeous Mollywobbles."

"Oh, shut up," she said, but he could hear the affection in her voice.

"Good night, dear," he whispered in her ear.

"Good night, love," Molly mumbled back.

With their arms wrapped around each other, they drifted off into sleep again.

_-o0o-_

"Grandma, grandma, wake up!"

Four little voices sounded way too close to be comfortable.

Molly groaned. "Girls, it's still really early."

"Gramps, come out, you have to see this!" Dominique called enthusiastically. "There's a giant tree outside that almost fell on the house. You wouldn't believe it!"

"Oh trust me, I do," Arthur said darkly.

"How come you're still sleeping?" Victoire enquired. "Dad says you're always up early."

Arthur and Molly exchanged glances.

"If only you knew," they murmured.

"Granma," Roxie jumped up and down. "Are we going to bake cookies today? You said we were going to make cookies."

Molly closed her eyes for a second, but she knew that was no point anymore in feigning sleep.

"Yes, we're getting up girls, just go your room and get dressed, we'll be down in a sec."

"Okay," the girls said happily and darted off towards the attic.

"You know, I'd never thought I'd say this, but having grandchildren is way more exhausting than having kids," Molly said.

"I couldn't agree more," Arthur reacted. "Yet I would't want to miss it for the world."

"Me neither."

"Now, let's get up. I think we have cookies to bake."


End file.
